HER MISSION IS PRESERVING PROVIDENCE

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ANTOINETTE DOWNING cringes when she hears her city referred to by its longtime nickname, ''Boston's ugly stepsister.'' To her, and many others, Providence is getting prettier and prettier.

A major reason is the preservation movement, begun by Mrs. Downing and others in the 1950's when Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design threatened to tear down a group of 18th- and 19th-century houses in a slum area on the East Side, around Benefit Street, to make room for new dormitories.

In those days, Mrs. Downing, an architectural historian, was often referred to as ''crazy'' and ''a meddler.'' She was attacked at Brown University parties, which she attended with her late husband, George, head of the Brown art department, by people who thought she was ''fighting education.''

Today Antoinette Downing, who is 80 years old, is regarded as the matriarch of preservation in Providence. The movement has spread from Benefit Street to other neighborhoods in the city, and Mrs. Downing estimates that several thousand old homes have been preserved since the 1950's. Providence is now believed to have one of the largest collections of intact 18th- and 19th-century houses in the country.

''The city planners are now saying nice things about the little old ladies in tennis shoes,'' she said with a smile.

Old-house fanciers will be able to see what those little old ladies have wrought when the Providence Preservation Society presents the annual Festival of Historic Houses May 3 through 5. There will be evening candlelight tours, as well as daytime garden tours, of the Federal, Greek Revival and early Victorian homes on and around Benefit Street, and a walking tour of the fanciful Victorian mansions on Broadway.

Mrs. Downing said she had been interested in architecture ever since she grew up in an adobe house in Springer, N.M. She studied art and English literature at the University of Chicago, where she met her husband, George Downing, and then studied architecture at Radcliffe College.

They moved to Providence in 1932 and she began work on a project that wound up being a book, ''Early Homes of Rhode Island.'' From then on, she said, she was considered an expert on old houses. ''In a small state like this,'' she said, ''once you become associated with something, you're asked to do things forever.''

At 80, Mrs. Downing has a shock of gray hair, a strong face free of cosmetics, and a witty, self-effacing manner without any of the stridency that one might associate with someone who has been a longtime adversary of developers.

Sitting in the board room of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission, of which she is the first and only chairman, Mrs. Downing recalled the events in the 1950's that led to the saving of the Benefit Street houses.

''It was such a slum then,'' she said. ''It was a dangerous area and people were afraid to walk down it. The houses were all covered with siding and it looked perfectly dreadful .'' The area was populated mostly by poor families and students, she recalled, with five or six people sometimes living in one room.

In 1955, Mrs. Downing was invited to discuss the matter with John Nicholas Brown, a descendant of the founder of Brown University. Mr. Brown, who has since died, was one of Providence's leading citizens ''and he was as concerned about the city and the old houses as he was about Brown's growth,'' she said. He came up with the idea of a Providence Preservation Society that would work to ''save the fabric of this area,'' she said. A meeting was called and 100 people attended.

Later, Mrs. Downing obtained a Federal grant and produced a report arguing that the College Hill area, which included Benefit Street, should be declared a historic district. One prominent resident, Beatrice (Happy) Chace, showed her confidence in the area by buying and restoring 15 houses on the street. Eventually, she restored more than 40 houses in the area, including a block that came to be called Happy Land.

Then came another problem: trying to get people to buy and move into the houses. ''It took three years before anybody would buy,'' Mrs. Downing said. ''They were afraid of the neighborhood and they were afraid they would lose money on the houses if they ever tried to sell them.''

In 1960 the College Hill Historic District was established and the neighborhood began to flourish. Twenty years later an estimated $20 million had been invested in restoring some 750 houses in the historic district. Mrs. Downing was named chairman of a commission that monitors changes in the neighborhood and she takes her work seriously.

The other day, while walking down Benefit Street, she noticed that a house was being painted a bright yellow that verged on chartreuse. ''That's a bit much,'' she said softly.

A few minutes later, a young businessman who is the house's owner noticed her on the street and shouted: ''Antoinette, would you come over and look at the color of my house?''

She studied it for a few moments, then suggested that perhaps it would look better if a little more gray was mixed in.

In April 1983, Providence showed its appreciation by raising $100,000 toward the establishment of an Antoinette F. Downing Fund. The fund, designed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, disperses grants to promote historic preservation in Rhode Island.

Mrs. Downing said that one of her few regrets was that poor families were forced out of Benefit Street. She said that she never fails to encounter hostile students at her annual lecture to a class at Brown. ''They say the rich take the houses, fix them up and dislocate the poor,'' she said. ''Each year I go I think I'm going to be able to explain it. If the houses on Benefit Street hadn't been renovated, they would have been demolished.''

Mrs. Downing has two grown children and four grandchildren. She lives in a ''poor man's Greek revival'' house on Power Street.

Two forms of architecture upset her these days: The ''instant old houses'' that are springing up all over, and the exteriors of fast-food franchises. On the instant old houses: ''They don't look right, they look dull, I can spot them right away. I'd rather live in a contemporary.'' On the fast food franchises: ''Something's wrong when you can take one style and put it all over America. I think a town has the right to dictate how it will look.''

Besides architecture, her other interests are reading mystery novels, listening to classical music, cooking and drinking good bourbon.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section C, Page 8 of the National edition with the headline: HER MISSION IS PRESERVING PROVIDENCE. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe